Duo 401
by emication
Summary: This series is a bunch of ficlets in which Heero slowly learns about Duo's past. Each part can stand alone.
1. Rats

Title: Duo 401 - Rats  
Author: Vinyl Koneko (Emily), roguegirl@att.net  
Rating: PG for this part, but I don't know what the series overall will be yet  
Warnings: ::shrug:: looks like none  
Archive: Want it? Take it. Just give me credit, please.  
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. I just like to play with them and make them play with each other.  
Comments: This fic started out in my plot bunnies notebook and kinda evolved from there. It's Heero's POV. This is part one in a series of minifics that can stand alone, so they won't be written very frequently because parts will only come as the ideas form. ^_^ Enjoy.  
  
*~**~*  
  
The first time I learned anything about Duo's past was when we were on a mission to infiltrate an OZ base to steal information on their latest Mobile Doll project. To get to the lower level entrance, we had to crawl through a sewage pipe that ended in a grate. Through the grate was a slightly smaller pipe that opened up at the top to a chamber that served as a method for the maintainance crews to access all the sewage or air ducts to make the necessary repairs. We were then the crawl through a ceiling air duct until we found a room with a terminal jack for me to pull the information from.  
  
It was Duo's job to get us in and out - mine to get the information. I was confident that Duo would have been able to accomplish this by himself even though his hacking skills were only slightly inferior to mine, but me, not being one to question orders, didn't say anything.  
  
It looked secure on paper. After several servelliance runs we figured out the best times to go and an approximate window we had to operate in. I could run through the exact motions in my head, knowing that we couldn't fail. We had a plan to deal with anything that could get in our way, and nothing short of a nuclear warhead would be able to stop us.  
  
The stench of the sewage pipe was unbelievable, but that had also been expected. Masks would have been too heavy to move easily in an emergency, so they were left behind. There was only one problem that I couldn't have anticipated.  
  
Duo Maxwell was afraid of rats.  
  
It was difficult to sense his apprehension at first. When most people are afraid, they scream, they cry, they get angry, but I had never seen Duo afraid before. Even Death seems incapable of threatening him, but then again, Duo does call himself Shinigami.  
  
He'd keep his eye on them, trying to stay a good distance away, but it was difficult with the swarms of them. He thought I didn't notice, but his eyes got wider when they got closer, and I could see him subconsciously going for the firearm at his side, but any shot he made would have rung out through the pipe and possibly causing alarms to go off, so any wishes he might have had to just put a bullet between each one's eyes had to be quelled for security reasons.  
  
I asked him later, when I was downloading the base's whole computer database onto my laptop, why he didn't tell me about his aversion to rats. That's how I put it. I had to make it sound like I needed to know because it could have caused a potential mission failure instead of wanting to know out of sheer curiosity.  
  
He said that when you grew up on the streets of L-2, you see some pretty ugly things. I knew Duo was from L-2, but I didn't know he was an orphan forced to live on the streets because of war. Duo was part of a sort of gang with several other children, and they did whatever was necessary to take care of each other and survive.  
  
Rats were a big problem.  
  
In the streets of L-2, everyone and everything was hungry, and it was either adapt or be killed, so the rats had to resort to different ways of finding food. They would hunt in packs, like wolves, and enough rats were able to take down a small child in minutes. Duo said that these rats were huge, up to twelve pounds, and they were fast and nimble and the only way to survive was to be faster or have fire.  
  
Then he showed me the scar on his shoulder, at the base of his neck. "Not everyone gets away from a battle without a few scratches," Duo had said wryly. "Whether it's here," he pointed to his shoulder, "or here," he pointed to his head, "or here," he pointed to his heart.  
  
I asked him what he meant by that, but he just smiled sadly at me and turned away so I couldn't see his face, but I could see the tension in his posture. "It's because of the rats we had the plague," Duo said. I remember how I had to strain my hearing to make out what he said. "But, you know," he added, covering his melancholy with his usual joyfull attitude, even though I could sense that this one was fake, or at least flimsier than the others. "Life goes on."  
  
*~**~*  
  
Owari 


	2. Basketball

Title: Duo 401 - Basketball  
Author: Vinyl Koneko (Emily), roguegirl@att.net  
Rating: PG for this part, but I don't know what the series overall will be yet  
Warnings: TWT, potential shonen ai  
Archive: Want it? Take it. Just give me credit, please.  
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. I just like to play with them and make them play with each other.  
Comments: This fic started out in my plot bunnies notebook and kinda evolved from there. It's Heero's POV. This is part two in a series of minifics that can stand alone, so they won't be written very frequently because parts will only come as the ideas form. ^_^ Enjoy.  
  
*~**~*  
  
I don't even know why J decides to stick me at schools near by next target. I'm a terrorist trying to take out an organization with the most powerful warmachine between Earth and the colonies and I'm still stuck going to high school. I guess it gives me something to do in between orders, but otherwise, it's just a burden. You have to try to fit in or you attract too much attention, even though you're leaving in less than a week.  
  
Every Friday we're allowed to do whatever we want in gym. Gym class can get pretty territorial, so if you don't protect what area you call yours properly, you'll be stuck playing knock-out with a group of jocks that have half a brain between them. My particular basketball hoop for Friday's gym classes is in the back near the storage rooms and across from the collapsible bleachers, and I'd just shoot hoops for the period entire the teacher called that it was time to go into the locker room and change.  
  
There wasn't a mission to occupy my thoughts, and I didn't feel threatened by fellow students, so I'll admit that my guard was down. I had sent J a message saying how I didn't have the proper resources to complete the next mission and request that he send what was necessary. I should have worded the request a little more carefully because I didn't get a what to help but a who.  
  
How Duo Maxwell excels in stealth operations is beyond me when he isn't acting like a pilot. I could hear him before I could see him. His whistling could be heard over the thud of basketballs hitting the gym floor and the squeak of rubbing sneakers. I could even detect the swish of his braid as the swayed from side to side with each of his steps. I probably even tensed, expecting him to hug me or something, but it never happened. He shot a ball that was tucked under his arm into the hoop, and it went in with a swoosh.  
  
"See that? Nothing but net!" He flashed me the cocky grin I knew all too well. At least he hadn't said my name. He didn't know what alias I was boarding at this school under.  
  
I didn't respond. Mentally I was cursing J. Mind you, I had and still don't have nothing against Duo. He just distracted me too much and it wasn't until later that I figured out why.  
  
Swoosh. "Yes! Three points!" Duo was pointing his index fingers in the air and doing some ridiculous victory dance. He spun back around to face me, expression turning more serious and extremely competitive. "Whaddya say? Me and you, one on one. The loser at the end of the period buys the winner lunch."  
  
I just smirked at him. Mission accepted.  
  
Later in the cafeteria, my mood seemed considerably dampened. Duo was elated, which only seemed to make me feel worse. It goes without saying that I lost, and Duo was happily chowing down the lunch that I bought.  
  
"That wasn't really fair of me," he said in between sipping his chocolate milk. "I am the master, after all. I should've been a little easier on you."  
  
I extend of the conversation made up of glaring at his lunch tray.  
  
"You're not gonna go blow yourself up or anything because you lost, are you? Heh. Just kidding. I mean, you weren't bad; I was just better." He bite the cheeseburger in half with one bite. "I might need for food, Heero. These burgers are dinky, and I'm a growing boy, you know," he said with a wink. He scowled at the cheeseburger. "We should've gone to Wendy's instead of McDonald's. They give you a bigger piece of meat."  
  
"It was your choice," I threw in. I don't know why. I couldn't let him blame me for his "dinky burger".  
  
"Yeah yeah, I know. So when did J decide that teaching you how to play basketball would round out your training?"  
  
I shrugged. "I just picked it up. J didn't mind since it was athletic and helped raise agility and accuracy." I couldn't figure out where he would have learned to play, so I had to ask. "Who taught you?"  
  
Duo's cocky grin softened a little, becoming almost nostalgic. I could have sworn I had seen the expression on his face before, but at the time I couldn't place it until after he explained. "I told you 'bout Solo, right?" I nodded mutely. "He taught me a little. We were out getting food when we found this beat up old ball. It was practically brown and the bumps were worn off so it was hard to hold, but he was excited. He started explaining to me about basketball, and all he remembered from before he was orphaned was when he'd play with his father in the park. We brought the ball back to where we had been hiding out at the time, and Solo managed to rig up a hoop with a trash can he cut the bottom off of, and that's what we'd do when there was nothing better around. The building had holes in the roof, so when the people in control of the colonies weather made it rain, we'd get soaked and cold, but we'd play basketball nonetheless. It kept us warm, ya know?" He sighed. "Yeah. So that's where I learned to play."  
  
That was the second thing I learned about Duo's past.  
  
*~**~*  
  
Owari 


	3. Mornings

Title: Duo 401 - Mornings  
Author: Vinyl Koneko (Emily), roguegirl@att.net  
Rating: PG for this part, but I don't know what the series overall will be yet  
Warnings: TWT, potential shonen ai  
Archive: Want it? Take it. Just give me credit, please.  
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. I just like to play with them and make them play with each other.  
Comments: This fic started out in my plot bunnies notebook and kinda evolved from there. It's Heero's POV. This is part three in a series of minifics that can stand alone, so they won't be written very frequently because parts will only come as the ideas form. ^_^ Enjoy.  
  
*~**~*  
  
This particular fact isn't necessarily about Duo's past, but it does say a lot about his person.  
  
Duo is a morning person, much to the chagrin of anyone who is with him at the time. He gets up before sunrise, chipper, smiling, and worst of all awake, while the rest of us can't even get awake without half the pot of coffee. It is said that coffee stunts your growth, and with the amount of it us pilots can consume, it's no wonder that we're all short.  
  
Duo gets up ridiculously early to watch the sunrises every morning. Whether it's 0400 or 0500, he never misses a sunrise. Duo said that this is because it's like a fresh start, a clean slate. He may seem to bear the title Shinigami proudly, but to Duo, it is more of a burden. The sunrise allows him to think that he is innocent at the start of each day, that for once he hasn't killed or stolen. It's his was to help ease his conscious. We all have our own ways, and early mornings seems to be Duo's. I don't know when this routine of his started, but it's a daily chore, now. Waking up an hour before dawn to shower and then sitting on the roof of whatever safehouse or dorm we're in to watch the sun come up. He says that it's the most beautiful and pure thing ever, and it makes him and the entire world feel that way, just for a moment. It's the only way to start off a good day, and that's why he's miserable on rainy or snowy days because the only colors to see those mornings are gray, white, and black. Duo is very much a person of color, so without the reds, pinks, yellows, and violets, he is lost.  
  
"Life is to short to just miss out on all of it," he said once. "How is life supposed to feel worthwhile if you aren't living it for yourself? I've known too many hard times to just be able to throw away my life. I have seen and gone through what nobody should ever hope to experience, and that's why I need these mornings. Only then can I feel true peace."  
  
And that is what we are fighting for. For everyone to be able to have their own mornings with a fresh start and an array of colors instead of the constant guilt and black-and-white life of a world at war.  
  
*~**~*  
  
Owari 


End file.
